Remember June 2024? Me neither. That was at least a decade ago. But sliding into Pride Month, it’s palpably different this year.

In the final week that we were making this issue, we covered two far-right, anti-LGBTQ rallies in our own backyard. A group called Mayday USA intentionally came into our historically queer neighborhood, set up a Bumbershoot-sized stage, and preached the sanctity of “biological gender” and “family values.”

Hundreds of Seattleites showed up to protest the rally, and the photo on our cover was taken at that protest. The person in pink watched the police advance on hundreds of protesters with clubs out and visors pulled down. In response, they waited for the police to be directly behind them, threw their backpack down, planted themself in the grass, and pulled out

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